Archive for March, 2014

Launching website is an exciting process to undergo because first impressions last long. Going live has its own pros and cons. Before publishing the vendor should keep in mind to double check the following checklist.

Internet Speed

In today’s era of high speed internet, time is money. So in order to maximize the response to the website, the internet surfers expect the website to load at a moment’s notice. This is especially the case with images because the surfer will go to some other website if the image does not open instantly. Speed of loading majorly depends on the host and the server on which the site is hosted on.

More importance for Browser compatibility

Testing the links for browser compatibility is a major area of concern. Browser compatibility with Firefox, Chrome and Internet explorer 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 should be a point of major escalations. The website should have a universal look and feel.

Better Avoiding Over Optimization

The content should be optimized but too much of anything is bad for health. So Google’s new algorithm update-penguin will penalize websites for over-optimizing content. The link should appear as natural as possible; the anchor text should be mixed properly. So don’t use the keyword over and over again in the on-screen text.

Black lettering on a white background is the easiest format for the user. If not, such a color scheme should be chosen such that the color is natural and classic.

Link Testing

The links as well as the back-links should be tested and re-tested for error 404 and not working. The net surfer will be peeved if the pages are not loading or loading partially.

Proofreading your content At least Twice

Proof-reading the contents twice is as important as putting a hard-hitting copy. The content should be revised for spelling and grammar.

Analytics

Google Analytics is an industry conformed tool for tracking your software for online visitors. This helps in online marketing as it traces page hits, page views and comments.

On page and off page Optimization

Titles and meta-data are important from the SEO perspective. The functionality of the website should be checked to ensure that the website is consistent with what we want to convey. Validation should ideally be 100%.

Favicon

Favicon brands the pages from within the bookmarks and browser toolbar. To keep the brand consistent, just have a 64px*64px version of your logo, save as an jpeg, rename the file to favicon.ico and upload in the root folder. The code used is

<link rel=”icon” type=”image/x-icon” href=”/favicon.ico” />

Basic SEO

RSS feed should be available when the website has a blog or newsreel. Sitemap (sitemap.xml file) is the single most important docs in the root directory of the website such that the major search engines can index the website.

W3C compliance

W3C compliance is used as a quality constraint and a measure of the site’s online dominance. W3C Compliance for Google is even not perfect, but it’s better to get a W3C validator to check common errors like adding closing tags to code.

It is a tough task for SEO experts to drive more traffic to their websites this year, However, Google hasn’t released any big update after Penguin 2.1. Here are some of the important pointers to be followed by Website owners to stay ahead in the competition.

Guest Blogging

Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be improved by guest blogging, quality content and quality back links. In the year 2014, the Social media Experts bank on highly improved deliverables which can have a major impact on website marketing. However, you need to re-think on your guest blogging strategy and gaining links through Guest blogging. Here’s one of the best example. Check here for more.

Good content strategy has major impacts. The content is targeted at a global audience which calls for deeply interwoven skills in creating content. There is some regularity in posting and sharing with the audience. This is one of the major signs that the page rank of the website is growing. Increasing the authority of the SEO professional also goes a long way I improving the page rank in 2014.

Presence of Google+ is must and include other top Social media websites in your list

Google focuses on ventures that make robust SEO and Content marketing efforts. This makes way for the projects that Google plans to support. A Google+ presence goes a long way to strengthen the social media marketing efforts. So a critical presence in Google+ is the call of the day.

Know your Audience First!

Focusing on target audience is one of the features of good SEO marketing in 2014. The visitors will register and will share the blog if the content is tailored to the target audience. The relevance of keywords is another striking feature of SEO marketing in 2014. Whether Transactional or Informational, the keyword holds a key to success in present days. Buyer personas are identified to create more personalized content for the websites. These buyers have their own pros and cons and will evaluate the SEO strategies depending on their skills and attitude.

Having clearly defined business goals is another trend in 2014 for SEO. The short term and the long term goals of the company are more important than increasing the page rank of the website. Nevertheless the higher the page rank, the more successful the venture and this feature cannot be ruled out when it comes to SEO marketing.

At the end of the day, “Client is GOD” and SEO strategies have to be tailored around this fundamental fact.

Underlining the hyperlinked context is a regular feature for Google search results. This feature is being rolled out by Google. Google has tried out several other attempts with respect to larger fonts and several other layouts.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter are looking into this particular aspect predominantly and several tests had been carried out with respect to larger fonts and removal of underlining. Danny Sullivan, Matt McGeee and Barry Schwartz are replicating the newer design layouts using their browsers. So larger fonts, more white spaces and hyperlinked content without underlines are the call of the day